French politician calls on Europe to abandon Russophobia

Date of publication: 08 11 2016, 20:20

Jean-Pierre Chevenement, one of the founders of the ruling French Socialist Party and the country’s former defense minister, has urged the European Union to give up its non-objective assessments of Russia.

“Europe must find its way out of the atmosphere of Russophobia, which is permeating its relations with Moscow,” Chevenement said in an interview published by a Swiss newspaper on Wednesday.

“Russia is not the Soviet Union,” he said advising “European politicians to stop looking into the future through glasses of the past.” He believed that “it was impossible to go on portraying our great neighbor to the East and preserving the bone of contention with it for a long time.” “Russia remains a superpower and Europe will be unable to get out of this situation if it continues treating it indifferently and in a biased manner,” the politician warned.

“Should we continue ignoring the prevailing opinion of the Russian population?” Chevenement asked, recalling that Vladimir Putin’s party had won parliamentary elections chalking up more than 55% of the votes. “This majority has not been refuted,” the French politician said.

“It is time to stop seeing Russian spies everywhere. Finding the way to cooperation with Russia is the only way for Europe to continue existing in the 21st century,” the politician said. “I believe in a Europe of nations, from the Atlantic to Russia, if General Charles de Gaulle is to be paraphrased,” he added.

Chevenement drew attention to serious geopolitical changes in the world noting the formation of a “new bipolarity between the United States and China known as the G2.” In this connection, he urged the European Union to act for the sake of preserving European interests in the face of this China-US bloc.